Today Tim Grance from NIST gave the keynote talk ”The Internet of Things and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”, the four horsemen representing: cloud, mobile, social, and big data. If these technologies are the four horsemen of the apocalypse (symbolizing conquest, war, famine, and death, respectively in the book of Revelation in New Testament of the Bible) is maybe questionable. But it is clear that these technologies give very large attack surfaces that will be very hard to handle. Interesting to notice is that Internet of Things (IoT) is an estimated 9 trillion U.S. dollar business which should be contrasted against the wearable market that is estimated to be a 9 billion U.S. dollar market, Tim’s very clear conclusion is that even if the nine billion dollar wearable market is excluded from the overall IoT market, the IoT business would still be 9 trillion U.S. dollar. My conclusion from this talk is that Swedish industry and academia should target to take a large cut from this cake, this an area with a huge potential growth  for Swedish industry. So let’s go for this nine trillion U.S. dollar business!

Background and Motivation

This research project is a strategic effort to increase the knowledge of the next generation of EMC requirements and possibilities in the context of two important and ongoing technology trends: the pervasive computing revolution, also known as Internet of Things (IoT), and new production methods, known as additive manufacturing. There is a need for understanding the new EMC environment and the requirements of electronics and embedded systems, which will follow in the footprints of the pervasive computing revolution. The pervasiveness of embedded systems, smart objects and IoT will be fulfilled by using the next generation of building and production practice. One of the most interesting emerging technologies in this context is additive manufacturing (3D printing) which has the potential to realize extreme integration of electronics and embedded systems.

Research Problem and Approach

The proposed research project is built around the EMC challenge of next generation embedded systems where high end research meets industrial best practice and innovation of new production methods and use of new materials. The focus is to conduct a comprehensive assessment, from an EMC perspective, of using additive manufacturing for integrating embedded electronics. The electromagnetic properties of the materials used in additive manufacturing are to be investigated, examples of important material parameters are: granularity, conductivity, permittivity, and permeability. Different additive production processes may provide varying structure granularity, spatial resolution, and a wide range of materials. However, there is a lack of standardized specifications for mechanical as well as electromagnetic properties enabling a good prediction on how manufactured parts will perform. To increase the opportunities of innovation in the area of additive manufacturing the following research questions have been formulated:

• How can we provide the necessary knowledge and control of processes, structures, and materials used in additive manufacturing to produce commercially useable devices?
• What electromagnetic properties do additive manufacturing provide, and does it provide new features usable for further integration of embedded electronics while sustaining EMC performance? What possibilities are there for extreme integration of electronic components, like antennas, for future wireless systems by applying additive manufacturing?

Goals

Besides the goal of achieving answers to the research questions, secondary goals of the project are: develop or improve laboratory measurement methods and models that more accurately reflect new requirements related to the pervasive computing vision; and develop best practice and recommendations for implementing these techniques into new EMC test standards. Accelerate the adoption of additive manufacturing and 3D printing technologies in the electronics sector and to increase competitiveness.